Chapter Eight: Sparkling

“Diamond? Diamond, wake up!”

Her half-lidded eyes saw only darkness, but she heard a jingling, and for a moment she thought she was a small lass again, awakening on the morn of Second Yule to her little sister’s entreaties, and the sound of sleigh bells.

Then she blinked her eyes open and saw, instead, Captain Peregrin standing by the bedside. He was dressed already, and bouncing on the balls of his feet, and the jingling was coming from the coins in the purse at his side.

“Come on!” he said, with another small bounce, and reached to tug at her arm. “We’re going to the Fair!”

The yard of the Smials was crowded with departing hobbits, despite the early hour, for many of the servants were taking advantage of the decrease in work heralded by the absence of the Thain and the Heir to take their own trips to the Fair. It was a long-standing tradition that this day was a bit of holiday at the Great Smials.

Pippin saw Diamond safely ensconced in the carriage with his mother, Pimpernel, and Pimpernel’s daughter, and then cantered Sorrel back to his father. “Are you still feeling all right, Da?” he asked in a low voice.

“Fit as a fiddle and right as rain!” Paladin crowed out, “Though to rain today ‘twould be very wrong,” he added and shook his fist in a gesture of mock threat at the clear sky just becoming visible in the first lights of dawn.

Pippin laughed, and cantered away again to pull up next to Everard.

“Good morning, slowpoke!” he called out cheerily.

“Pip--” Everard’s face fell in the dim light, and his lip trembled slightly.

“I meant your pony, silly,” Pippin laughed, and nudged his own mare with his heels. “Race you to the far fencepost,” he called out over his shoulder as he was off.

Everard laughed in turn, and spurred his own pony on to follow down the road to Michel Delving.

Pippin grinned as he felt the wind rushing through his curls, heard the pony’s hoofbeats below him, and smelled the clear air of the Shire. His father had been feeling well for over a week, now, with no sign of the troubles returning. This meant that Pippin’s own duties, assumed since he returned to the Smials in the spring, were once again less burdensome. And today, he was free to frolic and play at the Fair like the lad he had so recently been. The only truly grown-up responsibility he had to take care of this day was to vote -- and that would be a pleasure, not a chore, to cast his very first ballot ever for his dear friend Sam.

Within the cart, Pimpernel and Aster were the only hobbitesses who contributed to the din of the party’s chatter. The ten-year-old was continually raising herself to stand on the seat, or waving at hobbits she knew in the crowd, or pointing out new birds and other sights to her mother. Pimpernel, although she threw a frazzled smile or two in Diamond’s direction, had her hands full with keeping her daughter’s excitement contained, and trying not to let the lass wear herself out before they even reached Michel Delving.

Eglantine, taking advantage of the comfortable ride after the early morning’s awakening, dozed in a corner.

Diamond sat quietly and watched the road go by.

She thought, at first, when they arrived at Michel Delving’s fairgrounds, that she would be expected to spend the rest of the day in the company of Mistress Eglantine and Pimpernel, but Captain Peregrin pushed his way back through the crowd of hobbits tethering ponies and stabling carriages to stand before her. “So, what do you want to do first?” he asked eagerly.

Diamond’s eyes were round with wonder as she looked at the largest crowd of hobbits she had ever seen. Tent covers were billowing in a slight breeze, enticing aromas were wafting across the air, and the echo of music carried from someplace farther away, to be joined more discordantly with the nearby sounds of lads and lasses who had found noisemakers. She shook her head slightly, her mouth slightly agape.

“Have you never been to the Fair, then?” Pippin asked, cocking his head to one side.

“No, husband,” Diamond answered distractedly, her gaze still trying to follow all the new scenes at once. “I have not.”

“Well. Right, then,” he said, and grabbed her hand with a grin to pull her along behind him through the crowd. “I know something you’ll like.”

Diamond clutched tightly to Captain Peregrin’s hand as he weaved through the throngs of hobbits. He clearly had a destination in mind, but she did not want to become lost -- although -- oh! -- perhaps they would pass by that booth again later, and she would have opportunity to more closely examine its contents. And that -- that looked intriguing -- oh! She cast her eyes about her as her feet followed where Captain Peregrin led, her ears only dimly aware of some of the whispers from the crowd:

“The Long Cleeve.”

“Aye, I know of it. Been knowin’ not to speak on it much, for always.”

“Said she’s a North-Took, my cousin did.”

“Heard as near all the gentlehobbits was at the weddin’. Can’t be rilin’ the Thain, you know.”

“Heard he was right handsome at the weddin’, I did.”

“Poppy! You stop them giggles right now, and show some respect!”

Pippin stopped in front of one of the booths that lined a row full of food vendors. (Additional food stands, of course, were scattered throughout the fairgrounds.) Several of them had cooking fires crackling behind them. Later in the day, they would make the area beastly hot, but for now, the warmth merely took a bit of the morning’s coolness away.

“Sir,” Pippin said, withdrawing one of the coins from his purse with a flourish, “my wife would like a bag of your finest honey-roasted nuts.” He handed Diamond the small sack he received in return for his coin and accompanied a small bow with the smiling statement, “Mistress Took, your first breakfast.”

Diamond smiled back as she accepted the sack, and was about to thank him, when Pippin caught sight of another booth and grabbed at her hand, tugging her along again. Diamond watched, dismayed, as a nut fell from the top of the sack and landed upon the ground, to be crushed by those walking behind them.

“And here’s second breakfast!” Pippin crowed as he handed over another coin. This time, it was in exchange for a sack full of dough balls which had been deep-fried in a kettle of oil over the booth owner’s fire, then rolled in sugar.

Diamond was glad that, after this second purchase, they slowed their pace a bit. Captain Peregrin took her arm, then, as he did when he escorted her through the Great Smials, and they strolled on their way, each holding in the hand that belonged to their linked arms a sack of food.

Diamond was now free to use her other hand to actually eat the nuts, and he was right: she did like them! They were both salty and sweet, with that nutty flavor and crunch she so enjoyed. Captain Peregrin ate a couple of the nuts, himself, and told her she might share his dough balls. She took one, to be polite, when he tipped the sack toward her, but found it simply very chewy and sweet, and that she much preferred the combination of flavors to be found in her nuts. He was really a kind hobbit, Captain Peregrin was, to buy her such a treat, but she was also glad that he seemed to prefer the fried dough over the nuts, as it meant he ate fewer of them.

Their strolls, Diamond noticed, were taking her in an unexpected direction: toward barns. And stables. Surely they were not departing so soon, when there was so much more to see?

Her dismay must have been apparent, for Captain Peregrin leaned toward her and said, “I’ve found ‘tis best for dealing with Da if I get the obligations out of the way first thing. That way, we can have the rest of the day to play!” He added, as he straightened back up, “Just try to look interested,” but it was said in a mild tone, and Diamond decided, perhaps, the words were not meant to chide her, but merely as instruction.

The first barn they entered housed cattle, and Captain Peregrin made polite conversation with the hobbits tending them about milk production, and such things, while Diamond munched her nuts and looked curiously around.

Her family had had a milk cow, of course, and a pair of ponies, but it had always been the servants’ job to tend to them. Certainly such menial tasks had not fallen to Diamond since her betrothal, when her parents had kept her nearly sequestered in the smial except, upon occasion, to work in the garden, or on brief outings in the company of the family.

She therefore was quite fascinated to see the occasional spindly-legged calf nursing at its mother’s side or to glimpse, through the open door of the barn, the very large cow with a ring through its nose that could be heard occasionally snorting. It seemed, for some reason, to be tied up and penned far away from its fellow creatures.

“Diamond? Would you like some milk?” Captain Peregrin asked her, for the second time, it seemed, as he was holding a cup in front of her expectantly as the farmer waited.

“Oh!” she blushed furiously, her attention drawn back to him. “I am so sorry,” she quavered. “I was just -- just looking at the cows,” she concluded.

“Aye, they are a fine lot this year, aren’t they, Mistress?” the farmer asked, beaming. “I’m pleased to know you reckon ‘em so.”

“Oh,” Diamond breathed, but before she could say more, Captain Peregrin squeezed her arm gently and said, “A fine lot, and fine milk producers. I’m sure we’d both love to taste some of their wares,” and held out the cup.

“Of course, of course, right you are, sir!” the farmer smiled and bent to one of the cows to fill the cup directly with fresh milk. Diamond drained the cup first, after Pippin handed it to her, and murmured her thanks to the farmer, then handed the cup back to Captain Peregrin for the farmer to place more squirts in it, and him to drink his fill.

As they made their way out of the barn, Diamond noticed that there were several rows of cattle they hadn’t seen -- and she was curious about the big cow outside. “Husband, what--” she began to ask, but Pippin cut her off as he noticed the direction of her gaze toward the other rows.

“Those are beef cattle,” he told her, with a dismissive wave. “That’s really more of a Buckland thing.”

“Oh. Thank you, husband,” Diamond said, satisfied, and followed with him to the next barn.

She stood by his side as Pippin discussed wool with a farmer in the sheep barn, and racing with a hobbit in the pony barn. He stroked the noses of a few of these creatures, and cast glances about the stables as if he were looking for someone, but eventually concluded his talk with this farmer as he had with the others, and moved on to the hogs.

“Oh!” Diamond cried, and placed a hand over her nose -- the nuts and dough balls were consumed by this time, and the sacks discarded, so they each had a hand free. At the same time, Captain Peregrin appeared to take a deep breath and then let out the contented word, “Bacon,” with a wink at her disbelieving face.

He spoke, again, to a hobbit in the barn, but, when it seemed to Diamond as if it were time to leave, he turned to her and asked, “So, shall we look at this year’s prize boar, then?”

Diamond nodded uncertainly -- she would be glad to see a prizewinner. If only the smell in this place were not so unpleasant!

The crowd of young hobbits pressed up against the fence slats of a pen near the center of the barn parted way for Diamond to get close to the enclosure. Pippin, of course, was tall enough to see over the top without trouble.

“Aye, he’s a fine one, this year,” the farmer was saying into her husband’s ear as Diamond stared at the mammoth animal. It was shaped like a pig, true, but seemed nearer in size almost to one of the cattle as it lay there with its hoofs pointed toward her, sides heaving, doing nothing but flicking an occasional fly away with its ear.

“Some fine marblin’, it’ll make,” the farmer continued. “The hobbit that buys this one’ll have some fine roastin’ on ‘is table.”

“Aye, I’m sure ‘twill,” Pippin answered noncommittally, and the farmer pressed on.

“Looks as if the missus is findin’ his size somethin’ to look at as well, ey?” the farmer asked Pippin with a wink and a nudge.

Diamond, on Pippin’s opposite side, looked up with a blush to hear herself spoken of in jest.

Captain Peregrin’s eyes had gone cold as he regarded the farmer, and he took Diamond’s arm again, leading her away with cold words which seemed a statement to her, but which he addressed to the farmer with a frown. “Come along, then, Mistress Diamond,” he said. “I believe we are finished here.”

As they departed the hog barn, a hobbitess smacked the farmer, his smile still frozen upon his face, with an empty food sack she had rolled up.

“You fool!” she snorted. “I shouldn’t like to be you when you hafta tell Dan how you lost the sale of that prize boar o’ his to the Great Smials.”

“But,” the farmer whined now. “It were a joke. Last year, the lad woulda been laughin’ right alongside me.”

“Last year he weren’t married,” the hobbitess responded, her hands placed firmly on her hips and the sack still conveniently held within them. “And you’d no call to go insultin’ his wife. Like as not, she hain’t never seen a pig that big afore, if’n what we hear about the North Farthing’s true, but there still weren’t no call for it. Cap’n Peregrin hain’t no lad anymore: he’s the Heir to the Thain.”

Captain Peregrin’s stern mood had lifted as soon as they were free of the barn, and his shoulders sagged in apparent relief.

“Oi!” he said, rolling them back and extending his lower lip to puff a curl out of his eyes. “Well, that’s done, then -- and only a little over an hour, I should say.

“Unless,” and he looked at Diamond uncertainly and asked, “Did you want to go and see the chickens, then?”

“No, thank you, husband,” Diamond answered calmly, her eyes straying back toward the other booths. If chickens smelled anything like pigs, she was glad to be done with the barns!

“Good!” Pippin responded. “Da never asks if I went to see the chickens: he thinks they’re more for lasses. Although...” he trailed off, his eyes taking on a gleam as they traveled the area, until they alit on a certain booth. “Eggs!” he grinned and cried out, grabbing Diamond’s arm to tug her along again.

At the booth, Pippin purchased two oddly shaped objects. Coated in what appeared to be bread crumbs, an oval shape protruded from the end of a stick.

“Tookland eggs,” Pippin said, handing one stick to Diamond and taking a nibble of the bread-crumbed oval on the other himself. He swallowed, then smiled and said, “A hard-cooked egg, coated in sausage, then dipped into a beaten eggs, rolled in bread crumbs, and fried. Mmm.” He closed his eyes to savor another bite. They were twinkling when he opened them, and he told Diamond, “If you’re to be a proper Took, then, you should acquire the taste for ‘em.”

Diamond hesitantly took a bite of the egg on her own stick, and then willed herself to chew and swallow. If Captain Peregrin said she must acquire a taste for such things, then acquire it she must.

“Mmmphfy!” he suddenly shouted around a mouthful of egg, waving the hand which didn’t hold the stick above his head in the direction of a tall, blond hobbit sauntering toward the barns.

“There’s no need to shout, or to spray me, Pip,” Merry said as he drew closer, brushing some of the airborne bread crumbs off his yellow weskit. “If it’s not enough that you’re the second tallest hobbit here, I hardly think anyone could miss you in that getup. Honestly, why are you wearing that?”

Pippin looked down at the bright orange shirt he wore above a pair of old, but cool, blue breeches. The white braces, he’d thought, had been a nice summer touch. “’S got lots of pockets,” he said with a shrug, pulling a bit at the shirt. “Anyway,” he said with a roguish grin, “Diamond likes it, don’t you?”

Diamond was saved from having to answer this by the piece of Tookland egg she was dutifully chewing. Although, now that she took a closer look at her husband’s attire, she thought perhaps that was something she should add to her duties.

“Pockets?” Merry huffed. “What do you need so many pockets for, anyway? Couldn’t you just wear a weskit like a proper gentlehobbit?” He ran his hand over his own weskit, worn above a white shirt and brown breeches, preening a bit.

Pippin shrugged, undeterred. “Too hot,” he said. “Besides, you never know when you’ll need a pocket -- and there’s times you’ve been glad I had ‘em,” he added, waving the remainder of his egg toward Merry.

“Get that disgusting thing out of my face,” the Brandybuck said, and pushed it away.

Merry stood for a moment and smiled, looking at his young cousin. With that ridiculous outfit on, and munching on an egg, Pip looked like the lad he’d been when they set out on the Quest. The elder hobbit had been glad that the experiences of their travels had not changed Pippin too much, and that he’d had time at Crickhollow to heal further, and let Merry take care of him as he’d always done.

“It’s good to see you, Pip,” he said, and reached out for a hug.

“Ish good to shee you, too, Merry,” Pippin answered around a final mouthful of egg, hugging back hard with one arm while the other held onto the stick.

“So,” he asked slyly as they broke apart, “aren’t you going to greet Diamond, then? Diamond,” he turned toward her, “you remember my cousin, Merry Brandybuck.”

She nodded in polite acknowledgment, still chewing on her own egg.

“Charmed to meet you again, I’m sure,” Merry said with a bow, and reached for Diamond’s hand. She threw a questioning look toward Pippin, who gave a slight nod in return, and allowed Merry to kiss the back of her hand.

“So,” Merry said as he straightened up, “are you off to the barns, then? Uncle Paddin will ask you about it, you know,” he instructed.

“All done,” Pippin grinned. “Did it first thing. Now we’re off to see the Fair.” He waved his empty stick in a vague direction. “Where’s Mistress Estella Brandybuck anyway?” he asked, peering behind Merry as if expecting her to materialize.

Merry shrugged. “She had some things she wanted to do with other lasses, and I wanted to talk to the farmhobbits about this year’s pony stock, and the beef cattle. We’ll meet up again later.

“Come along back to the barns with me, Pip,” he said. “It’ll do you good to hear more talk of such things.”

Diamond’s eyes moved back to Pippin and, she was glad to see, he made a face of distaste. She did not want to go back to the barns.

Pippin, once again looking forward to a day free of responsibility and care, did not wish to do so, either.

“Merr-ee,” he whined, in the tone he’d perfected over the years, “come play!”

Merry sighed fondly and shook his head with a smile. His cousin sounded like a five-year-old. “Come on, then,” he said, placing a hand on Pippin’s shoulder to head him back toward the barns. “I know Uncle Paddin takes great pride in doing near to everything himself, but he’ll be glad to know that you’ve been diligent.”

Pippin squirmed quickly away from Merry’s guiding hand, and there was stubbornness and perhaps a touch of sadness on his face before it was gone in a flash, and he grinned once more.

“You can be a boring old hobbit if you want, Merry, and spend all day in the barns, but Diamond and I are going to have fun.” He grabbed hold of her had hand again, just as Diamond swallowed, with effort, the last bit of her egg, and called over his shoulder to Merry as he led her off, “We shall see you later!”

They spent the next couple of hours wandering, cheering on the piglet races -- Diamond was glad that they did not seem to smell as much in the open air -- and examining, finally, the wares of many of the booths. There were frequent purchases of snacks and they saw, upon occasion, other hobbits Diamond recognized by sight from the Great Smials and, frequently, those who greeted Captain Peregrin.

“Uncle Pip’n!” Aster cried out as he and Diamond stood at one booth, barreling into him behind the knees so that he staggered forward a little and placed a hand on Diamond’s shoulder for support. She held herself straight and sturdy for him to regain his balance as Aster chattered on.

“Mama won’t buy me a pretty. Come see,” she said, and tugged at his breeches while pointing to a nearby booth.

“Sorry, Pippin,” Pimpernel said with a harried smile as she approached them and grabbed her daughter’s pointing hand. “I blinked for a second, and she spotted you and got away from me.”

“’Tis all right, Nellie,” Pippin smiled. “I should be glad to see the pretties she wants to show me.” He removed his small niece’s hand from his breeches and held it with his own, clasping Diamond’s palm with the other. Both Pippin and Aster looked expectantly to Pimpernel to lead this train of hobbits to the proper booth.

Pimpernel sighed. “You know, dear brother,” she said over Aster’s head, “she only wants to get her uncle to buy her what her mother’s already said she has no need of.”

“Oh,” Pippin smiled, “since when is the Fair for things you need? ‘Tis for having fun, and playing, and looking at the things you want.”

Pimpernel melted under the hopeful eyes of her daughter and the amused, yet expectant, look of her brother, and led the group back the way she had come. “Oh, all right,” she said to Aster as a smile threatened to come to her lips, “but just one, mind you!”

“Ah,” Pippin said as he crouched by the child before the table of glass beads and other cheap trinkets, “but if you’re to have just one, you’ll have to make the right choice, then, won’t you?”

Aster nodded gravely and examined the table for several minutes, with her uncle’s help, before selecting a long necklace of barrel-shaped clear glass beads alternating with pebbles of a slightly greenish hue. “A very good choice,” Pippin said as he paid the booth attendant, and then slipped the necklace over the child’s head. “And now,” he asked, turning to his wife, who had been examining the table herself during these proceedings, “what pretty does your Aunt Diamond want?”

Diamond gave a start on hearing her name, and then smiled at him, and slowly reached out to pick up a necklace of many colors of glass beads and let it dangle from her fingers. Pippin paid for that as well, and then took it from her grasp and draped it around her neck. Diamond smiled as she looked down and caught the sunlight sparkling off the many colors of glass. She had never been able to choose, as a favorite, just one of the many colors in which she found beauty.

Diamond had thought, for a time, that the many snacks they had purchased from vendors would take the place of all regular meals at the Fair, but it seemed this was not to be the case.

At luncheon time, Captain Peregrin led her to a large pavilion. They stood, first, in a line outside the pavilion where many of the hobbits and hobbitesses they had seen in the hog barn filled their plates with slices of roast pork in a rich sauce and encased between slices of bread, piles of beans, and slices of melon. They then made their way to sit among the other hobbits.

Merry Brandybuck had rejoined them now, with his wife Estella, and she chattered animatedly throughout the luncheon with Captain Peregrin’s sisters Pearl and Pimpernel, while the two Took lasses spent much of the meal deftly grabbing their various children who attempted to scamper by. Pippin, Merry, and Everard laughed heartily with each other and ate with gusto, while Diamond savored both her food and the excitement of the large crowd.

As their party was finishing off the meal, an elderly hobbit stepped to the center of the pavilion and clapped his hands twice, signaling for attention. The murmurings quieted down to a lower level, as he announced:

“As you know -- or at least most of you do, I hope -- I, Will Whitfoot, have announced my intention to tender my resignation as Mayor of the Shire.”

Scattered applause and shouts of “Three cheers for Old Flourdumpling!” met this announcement, and the old hobbit’s cheeks were rather pink by the time the crowd quieted down again.

“We are therefore gathered,” he said with all the dignity he could muster, “as hobbits of the Four Farthings -- West, East, South, and North -- to elect a successor, as is our tradition, at this Overlithe Fair.”

“Wake me when he’s done,” Pippin muttered to Merry, lying back on the grass, next to a sleeping Everard, with his hands folded over his tummy.

Merry nudged him hard with an elbow before his eyes had fully closed. “Pip!” he hissed. “You’re a grown hobbit now and you’ll vote this year. Part of that responsibility is listening to Will ramble on.”

“Oh, all right,” Pippin grumped as he sat upright again. “I suppose I shall have to follow my much elder cousin’s advice. But Sam had better not start to talk like that!” he added darkly.

“Yes, yes, you do that,” Merry responded absently. “Hush, now, I’m trying to listen!”

Pippin and Merry listened to Will, and then to the other candidate’s speech, Merry somewhat more attentively.

Pervinca gave a small, tentative wave back to Pearl’s gesture of greeting as Odo Proudfoot expounded on his themes, and continued to sit among her in-laws.

“...and so it would be an honor to be the Mayor of the Shire, and I remind you that I am proud to belong to the fine family of Proudfeet.”

“Proudfoots,” Merry muttered with a low guffaw among the cheering and clapping that broke out at the end of this speech. “Hey. Wake up, Pip.” He nudged his cousin again.

“I’m awake, Merry,” Pippin said. “Just ‘tisn’t very funny anymore. He looked over to where his youngest sister sat as he absently chewed on a blade of grass.

Sam was up next, and the gardener shifted his feet slightly as he stood at the center of the pavilion to begin his speech. Merry and Pippin were completely attentive now, the tips of their ears pricked forward to catch all his words.

Sam cleared his throat and blinked once, then began, “Well, I reckon I don’t have such a fancy speech as Mr. Proudfoot, there,” he nodded toward the gentlehobbit, “but I can tell you as to why I’d like to be your Mayor.” He clamped his hands behind his back and stood with his feet apart as if he were declaiming a poem.

“I was workin’ for Mr. Frodo Baggins, as was Deputy Mayor a few years back, and got to see a little bit of what the job were like. And I got to thinkin, as I were goin’ around the Shire plantin’ some seeds as what some friends o’ mine give me, that I liked havin’ the chance to see all the different parts of the Shire, and to make sure the plants there was growin’ good, like they ought. I’d like to be Mayor so’s I could go and check on all my plants as they’re in bloom.”

Sam grinned as this caused the crowd to break out into laughter, and then continued on with a fond glance toward where Rosie sat on a small bench in an area surrounded by Cottons and Gamgees.

“’Course, them plants ain’t the only things I’d be lookin’ at around the Shire. Hobbits need help, sometimes, too, to grow and bloom right, and I’d like to watch that as well, and help out where I can. Now that I’ve got my own little lad and lasses,” -- he nodded to Elanor, sitting beside Rosie and swinging her legs over the small bench, while Frodo-lad cuddled under one arm and Rose-lass tried to curl up on what was left of Rosie’s lap on the other side -- “I’ve got even more of a reason to be wantin’ to help the Shire and all the hobbits in it grow right, and get all the things they need, and such prunin’ as is necessary.

“So’s I hope you’ll pick me as your next Mayor, and I’ll try to tend the Shire for you as if it were me own garden.”

He stopped, and there was a second of silence before Pippin leaped to his feet and shouted, “Hear, hear!”

Merry put his fingers in his mouth and whistled, then called out, “Three cheers for Samwise!” and a chorus of hurrahs erupted among the crowd’s applause, led by Thain Paladin.

Sam made his way among the departing hobbits back over to Rosie and mopped his brow with his handkerchief.

“Well, that’s done,” he said bashfully. “Though I s’pose if’n I do get picked as Mayor I’ll have to get used to all the speechifyin’.”

“It was splendid, Sam!” Rosie beamed up at him from where she sat clutching the children. “Gimme a kiss afore you get elected and find yourself too grand for the likes o’ me.”

She puckered up her mouth beneath her flushed red cheeks, and Sam wiped away a bead of sweat trickling along her hairline as he obligingly bent forward, saying, “Now, Rosie, you know that’ll never happen,” before he kissed her.

“Leastwise,” he sighed as he straightened up again, “now we’ve got to wait the whole afternoon to find out if’n I’m elected or not.”

“Oh, I’m sure you shall be, Sam,” Merry said, coming up behind him and clapping him on the back. “May the best hobbit win!”

“Aye,” Estella laughed as she stepped alongside Merry. “I’m sure you’ll make a fine Mayor, Sam!”

“’Course he will,” Pippin added as he escorted Diamond over to the grouping. “And I shan’t have to cast my first ballot for such a pompous old hobbit as Old Flourdumpling!” He made a face that had most of the others laughing, while Diamond smiled shyly and looked on the group of old friends.

“So, are you going to the voting tent now?” Merry asked Sam. “You can come along with us if you’d like.”

“No, Mr. Merry,” Sam said and shifted uncomfortably. “It just don’t feel right puttin’ a vote in for myself, if you follow me, so I think I’ll be sittin’ out the election this year, and keepin’ Rosie company.”

“And also bringin’ me whatever I ask,” laughed the hobbitess. “I’m afeared that all I’m doin’ at the Fair this year is eatin’ and findin’ some good spots o’ shade to sit in.”

“Well, in that case,” grinned the Brandybuck, “we shall certainly have to make sure our ballots count!” He grabbed Pippin’s free arm to lead him toward the voting tent while Diamond accompanied them on the other arm and Estella, who had been jiggling young Rose up and down, returned the lass to her father and followed.d.

At the voting tent, when it came time to be Pippin’s and Merry’s turn, they left their wives standing outside together as they went in. Diamond was suddenly aware of how loud and how large the crowd was without Captain Peregrin by her side, and peered frequently toward the tent flap as she waited for him to reappear. She tried smiling at Mistress Brandybuck, and Estella would occasionally start to address a comment or a question to her, but she kept breaking off the snatches of her comments to engage in conversation with several of the other lasses who passed by.

At length, Pippin and Merry reemerged from the tent, the older hobbit’s hand on the younger one’s shoulder. “So, Pip, how do you think you did with your first election?” asked the Brandybuck.

“Oi, Merry,” Pippin responded, rolling his eyes, “’twasn’t that hard. But I was glad I could vote for Sam. I think all hobbits ought to vote,” he said, waving a hand grandly to encompass the whole crowd, “the lasses, too!”

“Pippin!” Merry said reprovingly, while Diamond gasped.

Pippin’s shoulders slumped a little as he lowered his hand and looked at his wife. He had thought they were getting on well today, and had hoped to impress her with his comment. His sisters would have approved.

“Really, now,” Merry continued chiding, “the very idea of lasses voting!”

“And whyever should they not?” Estella demanded, her arms crossed in front of her.

“Well...They...” Merry frowned and sputtered, then turned to Pippin’s wife. “Diamond, would you want to vote?”

Pippin looked hopefully at her, and Diamond glanced at him as she replied slowly, “Well...perhaps if my husband told me for whom to cast a ballot...”

Merry was thoughtful. “Yes. Yes, that might work,” he said, rubbing his chin in his hand, as Estella spluttered, “Oh!” and stalked off.

“And you’ll follow this lass, if you know what’s good for you, Meriadoc Brandybuck!” she called over her shoulder.

Pippin shrugged and smiled ruefully at Merry, then extended his arm to Diamond, and the three of them followed Estella through the crowd.

She led them into the shadowed confines of a tent which was cool in the heat of the day, and turned back to pull Diamond along with her to view its contents. Pippin and Merry idled along behind them, chatting and laughing about everything and nothing.

Diamond peered intently at the artwork propped against easels within the tent. It was remarkable, the portraits and the landscapes these hobbits could create with such materials. She leaned close to study the likenesses crafted with careful arrangements of dried beans, and sunflower seeds, and kernels of maize that had been glued into the design. And, while she wished to be polite to Mistress Brandybuck, Diamond did wish that the other hobbitess would stop distracting her by calling out, loudly, the name of every seed artist who happened to be a lass.

“Pervinca Proudfoot!” Estella announced as she read an artist’s card, throwing yet another triumphant look over her shoulder at Merry. So far, the lads seemed to have been ignoring her, but this caught Pippin’s attention, and he moved up for a closer look.

“Why, ‘tis the same picture she was working on two Yules ago!” he said as he examined the detailed image formed from seeds and dried grasses of plants in bloom at the Great Smials’ garden in the foreground, with the orchards and the Smials itself, as well as tiny figures who were clearly hobbits engaged in various activities, visible as the perspective reached back. “I wonder why it took her so long to finish.”

Pervinca shifted the babe in her arms as she peered over the heads of the gathered hobbitesses to see the judges’ table. ‘Twas nearly time for Ivy’s next feeding, it was, but if she could just keep the lass from becoming too restless, she might could hear what the judges said of her plum jam.

Her daughter Clover hovered at her side -- took after her mother in height, she did, that one, and would be near as tall as many ten-year-old lasses at her seventh birthday in Halimath -- while two-year-old Harcourt clutched her skirts with one hand and wailed around the fingers of the other he had clamped in his mouth. Bramimond, at four, was a fidgety little hobbit and hopped from foot to foot next to his sister, begging,

“Can we please go now? Go back to the games? Or the ponies? Please, please, can we?”

“Hush!” Pervinca said and then turned her attention back to the judge who had just dipped his spoon in her jam while her head was turned.

“We could go with our cousins,” Bram whined, and tugged on his mother’s skirts at a higher level than Harcourt, using his other hand to point to a cluster of young Proudfeet who stood with their mothers a few yards away.

“Hush!” Clover said this time, and smacked her brother lightly on the back of the head. “You know we aren’t to let anyone but our mother care for us. Our father says,” she raised her nose in the air so her curls hung straight down her back, “that we shall be treated special, as she’s the daughter of the Thain.”

Pervinca sagged a bit as the judges announced their decision. The jam which had been the best of her efforts in last summer’s hot and hard work was put aside. She caught an exchange of superior glances among the Proudfeet hobbitesses, just as both Ivy and Harcourt began to wail.

Ganelon North-Took pushed another hobbit aside with his shoulder as he exited the voting tent. He’d done his duty at the Fair, and cast his ballot for Samwise Gamgee. He hadn’t known either of the candidates before their speeches to the crowd at the pavilion, but Gamgee had been one of the witnesses as his sister wed the Thain’s Heir, so he must be an important hobbit.

Ganelon’s ballot had been weighted to count for his father, their hobbitservant, and one or two others besides, as everyone knew travel was difficult to and from the far reaches of the North Farthing. It had fallen to him to be the voting delegate this year, although Ganelon would have preferred to remain away from the crowds.

“...s’pose we’ll have one o’ our own mixin’ it up with the gentry, then,” came the proud voice.

“Oi, that’s what comes o’ workin’ so close to them Bagginses. Always had some cracked idees, that lot,” the second speaker chuckled.

“Still, never thought I’d live to see the day when a gardener Gamgee looked to be the Mayor of the Shire,” the first, awed, voice spoke again.

“What did you say?” Ganelon asked, grabbing the first hobbit by the shoulder and drawing him around so that the drink sloshed in the mug he held. “Did you say Samwise Gamgee is a gardener? A servant?” he sneered the last word.

“Well, sir, there’s no call for that,” the hobbit said, extricating his arm and not spilling any of his drink. “And I s’pose he ain’t no servant anymore, not after Mr. Frodo Baggins has gone and left him Bag End for his own, but he were Mr. Baggins’s gardener over in Hobbiton, and a fine one, make no mistake!”

Ganelon’s face was cloudy as he stormed away from the hobbits. A gardener! As witness to the match which should elevate his sister to the highest position a hobbitess could reach in the Shire. The match that Ganelon had argued for, hoping that at least a hobbit of North-Took blood would regain the title that should have been theirs. Diamond’s marriage, he felt, should lift the whole family in the eyes of the Shire -- and the Tooks had used it as occasion for such an insult!

He caught a glimpse of his sister emerging from one of the tents on the arm of the Heir, accompanied by another tall hobbit and his hobbitess. The two hobbits threw their heads back and laughed, and then the couples turned to stroll along the fairgrounds.

Ganelon stepped back amongst the shade cast by a booth as they passed near to him, not wishing to be seen. His eyes caught, as he stepped back, a glint of sunlight off the necklace which sparkled around his sister’s neck. “Fine jewels,” he thought to himself, “as befits her station,” but his hand brushed against the booth he stood beside, and he glanced at its contents. An identical necklace looked up at him from among the cheap trinkets. Nothing but colored glass.

Ganelon lifted his eyes again to follow the progress of the Heir. “I will find some little trick to play, myself,” he vowed silently, the very tips of his lips quirking up. “Something fit to relieve my fury at these wrongs.”

Among the crowd, Pippin tilted his head back and pealed out a laugh that was loud and long.

He laughed again as they entered another section of the fairgrounds. “Come on, Merry, games!” he said and would have bolted forward if he had not remembered he was holding Diamond’s arm and should walk more sedately.

“Hullo, Mr. Pippin, Mistress Diamond,” came a cheerful greeting, and Pippin turned to smile at the hobbit, as did Diamond, pleased to see a face she knew, while Merry and Estella walked on ahead.

“I dinna want to disturb you whilst we’re on holiday,” Bert said with a head bob, “only to let you know your pony’s fine and, well, I’m here with my sister, and I thought as how you might remember her if’n you was to see her face.” He blushed but looked fondly at the stout hobbitess standing nearby next to an even stouter hobbit.

“I’m sorry to bother you, sir,” she laughed, “Only I’m happy to know our ‘Bert’s found such a good place. S’pose we all want somethin’ good to come to our brother, or sisters in your case, Mr. Pippin, if I’m not out of my place to say so.”

“No, you are quite in your place to say something that’s true, er...” Pippin smiled and looked at Bert for help.

“It’s Fern, as was Furryfoot when I did my workin’ out at the Great Smials,” she laughed, “and as is now Broadbelly,” she poked her ample stomach, “a name that we all be fittin’!”

Pippin laughed along with her, and bent to kiss her hand in the same manner as Merry had greeted Diamond.

“So, Bert,” he asked, “what game did we interrupt?”

“Well, it’s not rightly a game,” he said, looking at the fur on top of his feet, “ so much as ‘tis a contest that Fern thought I might could win.”

“Aye, he’s been the strongest hobbit I knowed ever since he were a little lad,” Fern boasted, then added, “Sir.”

Diamond’s mouth fell open as she looked beyond the hobbitess to where a barker was calling for hobbits to try their skill at striking a very large mallet in an attempt to raise the wooden block he had placed between two poles high enough to strike the bell at the top. “Oh!” Pippin squealed as he looked at the contraption. “I’ll bet you could win that, Bert! Don’t you think so, Diamond?”

Three sets of eyes were on her as Diamond considered the bellpole, then Bert. She had, herself, seen him moving quite a few heavy objects around the Smials. “Yes,” she smiled at the servant. “Yes, I certainly think you could.”

By the time it was Bert’s turn to compete, a small crowd had gathered around the bellpole, including Merry and Estella, who had returned from their wanderings by this time, and some of the other Smials servants who had happened by.

“One. Two. Three!” he hit the mallet, and a collective groan arose from the onlookers as the wooden block stopped just short of the bell.

“Try again, then, Bert!” Pippin encouraged as the servant started to back disappointedly away.

“I can’t, Mr. Pippin,” he mumbled. “I hain’t got the coin as to spare for another go.”

“’Tis that all?” Pippin snorted, and withdrew a coin from his purse. “And don’t tell me you can’t take it,” he stopped the hobbit from opening his mouth further. “You earn your wages well enough, and ‘tis for the honor of the Smials -- and the hobbit who runs this game besides.” Bert took the coin from Pippin’s outstretched hand as the hobbit at the bellpole slightly eased his foot off the weighted lever nearly hidden at its base.

“One. Two,” Bert grunted again, taking half swings with the mallet before connecting, then, “Three!” The wooden block shot up and struck the bell with a resounding clang.

“Oh!” Diamond grinned and clapped her hands.

“I knowed he could do it!” Fern cried out and bobbed her stout self up and down in place once before lifting her round face to cry out, “Thank’ee kindly, Mr. Pippin!”

“Aye!” Pippin cried out, laughing with her, “for the Great Smials!” and returned the hug she offered.

Bert mopped the sweat from his brow, beaming, and puffed out his chest a little for the kitchen lasses he caught staring and giggling in his direction.

“You play this one, Diamond, too!” Pippin pulled her along to the front of another game booth. “It’s easy!” They had already participated in many of the games the Fair had on offer, and Pippin’s many pockets were bulging with small sacks of goodies. Merry and Estella had left to wander back toward the pavilion for supper, but Pippin wanted one more game.

“See,” he said, reaching around Diamond’s waist from behind to steady her with one arm, while the other guided her hand, “you just throw it gently, like this.”

Diamond felt especially warm where Captain Peregrin’s arm encircled her waist, and where his breath blew hot in her ear as he spoke. The canning jar ring left her fingers and landed over the neck of one of the bottles arranged in the booth.

“Oi, lass!” the hobbit within stated, picking up that bottle and handing it to her, “you’ve won yourself a nice ginger beer, there.”

Diamond took it and stepped back slightly as Captain Peregrin drew his arm back for his own throw. His canning ring landed on the bottle sticking up in the very center of the arrangement.

“And a grand prize winner!” the booth hobbit said. “What’ll it be, sir?”

“Oh,” Pippin grinned, his face flushed with the excitement of the day and his green eyes sparkling. “You choose the prize, Diamond.”

She thought a moment, her fingers to her lips, then smiled and pointed to a small stuffed squirrel.

She carried this beneath her arm, taking sips from her ginger beer with the arm that was linked in Captain Peregrin’s as they walked back toward the pavilion. The ginger beer, like so many other things at the Fair, was a new experience for her, and she thought perhaps its cool, fizzy taste was responsible for the way she felt so oddly giddy.

Ganelon, sitting among the crowd and eating his beef tips, frowned when he saw his sister approach, her hair askew, and sipping what appeared to be an ale straight from the bottle, like a common hobbitess, or a barmaid, even. Did Peregrin Took mean for the North-Tooks to become a laughingstock, with such actions, and--

“--Samwise Gamgee, the new Mayor of the Shire!”

Ganelon dumped his plate on the ground and left amid the cheers.

Sam said a few words of thanks, then turned his attention to his first duties as Mayor.

“I declare you, uh, Pork Mistress of 1427!” he stammered as he placed a floral wreath on the tweenager’s head. He repeated the action for the Beef Mistress, and then both lasses and Mayor blushed prettily as they each presented a cheek for him to kiss.

As the hobbits of Great Smials gathered for the return journey which would take them well into the night, Pad and Eg leaned sleepily against each other in the carriage. Pimpernel sat in one corner of the opposite seat, and Everard lifted Aster in as he and Pippin pulled their ponies alongside.

“Mama bought me a bunch of blue ribbons,” Aster muttered sleepily, clutching onto the prize with one hand while her head settled into her mother’s lap and her feet rested against Diamond’s.

“Aye, to tie up your bonny brown hair,” Pippin whispered softly, and smiled at his wife before pulling the pony away.

Diamond snuggled into her own corner of the carriage and let her eyes close, holding the squirrel in her arms.